Concerned that students who are teetering on the edge of dropping out
will “disengage” from the entire school system, AISD administration
last month announced a bottom floor for students’ six-week grades. In a
January 15 memo to all high school principals, AISD Deputy Superintendent
Kay Psencik instructed, “As we strive to implement a student-driven
curriculum and to provide standards of service to all of our students, we
must review and change practices and procedures that hinder student progress
and the academic success of our students…. Therefore, effective immediately,
students may not receive a six weeks grade less than `50′.” That last
part was in bold and underlined.
Many teachers, however, are crying foul, and say that this policy will
further erode academic and grading standards — because it revokes their
power to give the grades that some students actually earn. “The district
is trying to cook the numbers,” said Louis Malfaro, president of the
Austin Federation of Teachers (AFT), who organized a Monday press conference
on this subject in front of Johnston High School. Although the “50”
policy is not specifically aimed at Johnston, it is nonetheless a campus
where attendance and student preparedness have chronically been a problem,
Malfaro said.
Johnston English teacher Lois Willett, recently retired, noted that students
with very low grades are frequently absent, have inadequate skills for their
grade levels, and/or are often suspended from school. “Those circumstances
are beyond the control of the teacher,” Willett remarked in a written
statement to the press.
Moreover, teachers commonly acknowledge the problem of “social promotion,”
which is the not-so-subtle pressure to pass students despite academic shortcomings;
the “50” policy only increases that pressure, said Malfaro. “Some
principals are even placing teachers on a `growth plan’ because they have
too many students failing,” he said. He said he did not inquire at
AISD central administration about the rationale behind the policy, because
teachers weren’t asked to participate in it “before their discretion
to give grades was taken away.”
District spokeswoman Della May Moore acknowledged that the “50”
policy is “an administrative decision,” but a decision designed,
she said, to help students and prod teachers into examining their instruction.
“A grade of 50 is still failing,” she emphasized. But a grade
below 50, even if it’s earned, is demoralizing to students. “Give them
a failing grade, but give them a point of recovery. We cannot afford to
give up on students,” Moore said.
Much of the research shows that a majority of high school dropouts leave
the system at the 9th grade, and it’s believed that some 40 to 50% of AISD
high school freshmen are failing at least one course. Even a grade of 69
counts as failing, which casts doubt on whether “50” really means
much of anything. It’s not that much worse than 69, and certainly no better
than, say, a grade of 20. And other questions remain: How many high school
students were earning less than a grade of “50” during a six-week
grading period? How many students might be “saved” under the new
policy? Moore did not know, but believes the problem is significant enough
to warrant the remedy prescribed.
This article appears in February 14 • 1997 and February 14 • 1997 (Cover).